Quarantine is a must, at least to have a QT if a fish need to be treated. It's cheap enough and easy enough to set up.
Is it reddish or do you see some red blood vessle? Maybe some bacterial infection or parasites. The scratching would indicate probably parasites. For the supplementent food you could get a white worms culture and give it some live white worms. My copperband eat those like popcorn! They are rich in protein and fat and since they eat bread soaked in milk it is also easy enough to enrich them with vitamines and selcon.
If your fish get worse, I am afraid that you will have to treat it with antibiotics or a parasite treatment. I would go with Seachem Paraguard as it is a very broad treatment that is not hard on a fish and that target fungus, bacterias and parasites. Best not do this in the main tank as it would kill invertebrates and coral.
Just put a few pieces of live rock with some water from the main tank to start with and a small pump or a small canister filter and that's it. Treat it with paraguard for 2 to 3 weeks if it does not get better.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jassz
I think this should have its own topic as perhaps it was lost in the other thread.
I have a double saddle back butterfly (Zoom Zoom), that I have had about 6 weeks. He's not a good eater, but seems to be surviving eating from my live rocks (mostly aptaisia). He was doing some chin scraping on the rocks (see the other thread about his lips), but that seems to have stopped. He is a bit twitchy sometimes though. There have been no spots on him, until a couple of days ago when one appeared on his front fin. It is white, covers most of his fin, and is kind of thick and bumpy looking. He seems to keep it close to his side. Very easy to see, but not so easy to get a picture of. But I tried. What might this be, and what would be the best thing to do for it? I have a 135g tank with a lionfish, a wolf eel, a picasso trigger and a valentini puffer. Oh, and a cowrie snail. Everyone gets along well. I think the other fish are senior citizens (at least the puffer and the lion), but everyone is healthy and doing well. I have no means to quarantine (which is partly why I've waited for years to introduce another fish, and I did so now because I needed someone to help tame the aptaisia that had taken over the tank. Zoom Zoom is certainly doing that!).
What do you think?
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